A court in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay $375 million (£279 million) for misleading users over the safety of its platforms for children.
A jury found that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, was liable for the way in which its platforms endangered children and exposed them to sexually explicit material and contact with sexual predators.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said the verdict is historic and marks the first time that a state has successfully sued Meta over child safety issues.
A spokeswoman for Meta, led by chairman and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, said the company disagrees with the verdict and intends to appeal.
She stated: We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.
The jury found that Meta was responsible for violating New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act because it misled the public about the safety of its platforms for young users.
During a trial that lasted seven weeks, jurors were presented with internal Meta documents and heard testimony from former employees about how the company had been aware of child predators using its platforms.
Arturo Béjar, a former engineering leader at Meta who quit the company in 2021 and became a whistleblower, testified to various experiments he ran on Instagram that showed underage users were served sexualized content. He mentioned that his own young daughter was propositioned for sex by a stranger on Instagram.
State prosecutors exhibited internal Meta research showing that, at one time, 16% of all Instagram users reported being shown unwanted nudity or sexual activity in a single week.
Meta argued that it has worked over the years to combat problem users of its platforms and promote safe experiences for minors.
In 2024, Instagram released Teen Accounts, giving young users more ways to control their experience. Just last month, it launched a feature that alerts parents if their children are looking for self-harm content.
The total civil penalty of $375 million was reached after the jury decided there were thousands of violations of the act, each carrying a maximum penalty of $5,000.
Meta is also involved in a separate trial in Los Angeles, where a young woman claims that she became addicted to platforms like Instagram and YouTube, owned by Google, as a child because of the intentional design of these platforms.
There are thousands of similar lawsuits navigating through the U.S. courts.
New Mexico sued Meta in 2023, claiming the company steered young users to content that was sexually explicit and exposed them to solicitation and sex trafficking through its recommendation algorithms.
Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew, Torrez said. Today the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough.
